Snowy Hydro SouthCare Women in Business Luncheon 2015

Snow Hydro SouthCare’s Women in Business Lunch, is an annual event , where there’s some fundraising of the experiential kind, meaning you can buy packages that take you on a learning walk around Tidbinbilla, enjoy a painting experience in the Brindys or canoe with Paul Jurak and your camera in the early morning on Lake Burley Griffin. And you get to indulge in fine food and wine from the Hotel Realm.

There’s always a story from someone who has been a recipient of the expert care of the Snowy Hydro SouthCare team, with this year Virginia Berger’s ‘aortic dissection’ emergency occurring while she was painting her toe nails. It felt like she’d been stabbed in the neck and the pain started to move down her body. Luckily her neighbour was home to take her to hospital and after diagnosis it was off in the chopper to Royal Noth Shore Hospital for Virginia. It was almost enough to turn us off our lunch but Virginia is alive and well and still paints her toenails.

This was a smart lunch, one where you could network, catch up and create opportunities and one that recognized the complex, extensive, unique and valuable abilities of women across a diverse range of career choices. Women talking to women about their experiences is always a great leveler, especially for those who flounder wondering if they’re meeting the criteria of success they’ve arbitrarily set for themselves. So to hear Kate Lundy and Kate Carnell go back to their 16year old self, tell us of the choices they’ve made and why, judge the best and worst of themselves and divulge a few secrets we had no idea about was a ‘fireside chat’ without a fire and a salutary lesson to us all to go with that gut feeling; if it feels right ...do it.

Kate Carnell had initially wanted to be a chef. Never knew that, but I’m not surprised. Kate Lundy was the beneficiary of Sue Ryan’s ( Senator for the ACT) efforts to have sex-discrimination in employment advertising removed. Kate Lundy didn’t know that when she signed up as a laborer removing asbestos from the National Library of Australia. With Virginia Hausegger as the moderator it was an insight into these two women we admire and my addition is to let you know Kate Lundy is an accomplished artist with her bird watercolours gaining the help of an avid vice-regal photographer who likes to photograph them.And Kate Carnell's admission that she did compromise her beliefs to get one budget through the Assembly earning considerable applause.

For the Snowy Hydro SouthCare team with new CEO - my hero - Chris Kimball at the helm it was a winning combo and introduced smart new technology so you could SMS your bids for the silent auction. That’s the way to go.